By Dalton Rosario
Yesterday President Trump announced that former Chief of Staff John Kelly’s replacement will be Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney - Director of the Office of Management & Budget. Mulvaney has an extensive track record for supporting pro-cannabis legislation ranging from hemp legalization and cannabis rescheduling initiatives, to protecting state medicinal laws and preventing the Treasury Department from prosecuting banks that accept legal cannabis proceeds.
The timing of such a promotion could not be more perfect. A vast coalition of over 200 civil, social and humanitarian rights organizations released a letter of intent for the 116th Congress beginning in January 2019 to remove cannabis from the Controlled Substances Act. This coalition includes groups such as the AARP, NAACP and the American Federation of Teachers and League of Women Voters. As outlined by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, legalized recreational and medicinal cannabis sales and tax revenues ought to be invested into communities that have been targeted by the war on drugs. Federal cannabis prohibition will be a pivotal campaign topic in the nearing 2020 presidential elections. And its repeal has already been supported on the peripherals by President Trump, who is vocally in favor of cannabis reformation and states’ autonomy to create, regulate and tax legalized cannabis.
